A typical supermarket or grocery store may have 30,000 to 60,000 items (aka Stock Keeping Unit or SKU) available for purchase, of which around 4,000 or more may be promoted each week, particularly through the use of shelf talkers in the aisles of the store. Shelf talkers are signs that are posted near the products being promoted, typically calling attention to a sale price or other information designed to attract the consumer to the product. The use of shelf talker signage requires a significant amount of time to print, sort, and place the shelf talkers at the intended locations in the stores. In large chains, a centralized location may be used to print and sort the shelf talkers for each store, requiring additional time for sorting and delivering. The placement of the shelf talkers is done manually and there is no means for verification that the shelf talkers are appropriately placed.
Several attempts to ensure proper placement of shelf talkers have been made. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,448,226 issued Sep. 5, 1995 to Failing, Jr. et al., titled “Shelf Talker Management System” discloses a shelf talker management system wherein a shelf rail includes a plurality of electronic shelf labels for displaying the price of products on the shelf. A store central computer notes shelf talkers that need to be updated and a printer prints the shelf talkers in a sequential order in which the electronic shelf labels (ESL's) occur in the store. A rail of electronic shelf labels is selectively actuated to cause those labels in the rail associated with a product for which an updated shelf talker is required to annunciate an indicia. The indicia may be a flashing light or a blinking display.
After the shelf talkers are printed in order, a clerk inserts a key in a shelf rail to enable tags requiring a new shelf talker to annunciate its location. The clerk matches a shelf talker with an appropriate annunciated ESL and installs the shelf talker adjacent the ESL. Verification of a shelf talker installation is performed by central computer system.
While an improvement in the identification of the shelf talker location is achieved by the system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,448,226 (Failing, Jr. et al.), the system has the disadvantage that the only provision for assuring that the appropriate shelf talker was placed with the ESL is a visual cross-check of the price on the bib and the price on the display followed by pressing a button on the ESL. This only provides assurance that some shelf talker was placed in the location or removed from the location, and there is still a risk that the wrong shelf-talker was placed. This can result in customer confusion if the information in the shelf talker does not match the product that it was intended to promote. More importantly, the system provides for no significant reduction in the time required to produce, sort, deliver, and place the shelf talkers. The system also requires that product location information be known so that shelf talkers can be printed in order or so that they can be pre-sorted in the order they will be required for placement in the store. Additionally, the disclosed system relies exclusively on two way communication between an ESL and a computer. Special sensors or switches to detect the presence of a shelf talker add cost to the ESL's.
Another example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,169,493 issued Jan. 2, 2001 to Goodwin, III, titled “Shelf Talker Management System And Method” discloses a method of managing shelf talkers using an ESL with in-aisle verification of proper installation of a shelf talker using a bar code reader in a handheld terminal that has communication capability back to a central computer via a central communication base station. In one embodiment, the handheld terminal receives a list of items including a first group of shelf talkers to be installed and a second group of shelf talkers to be removed, and the hand-held terminal is used to scan bar codes on the items or on the shelf talkers.
The system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,169,493 (Goodwin, III) is intended to enable management of shelf talkers whether ESL's are used or not. There is still no provision for reducing the amount of time required by a clerk to sort signs in the proper order or to find the correct sign to place, either of which can result in excessive time to complete all required placements. In addition, when the system is used in conjunction with an ESL the system relies on a centralized base station to enable the ESL to change its display, thus alerting the clerk to the location of the placement. The required centralized base station results in a more costly ESL/Shelf-talker management system.
Another system proposed to provide a solution for updating both electronic display tags (ESL's) and shelf talkers is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,552,663 issued Apr. 22, 2003 to Swartzel et al., titled “Product Information Display System With Expanded Retail Display Functions.” In this system, a handheld portable wireless terminal communicates with a controller connected for communication with the ESL's, where the portable terminal receives a list of items needing shelf talkers (beard tags). In a guided mode, a store clerk selects one item on the list to perform the required operation, causing the portable unit to communicate back to the system controller to send a signal to the ESL to flash its annunciator. The clerk visually identifies the tag requiring shelf talker maintenance, completes the action, and presses a “step complete” key on the handheld unit. Alternatively, a number of ESL's can be activated in a batch mode where all tags in a particular location are caused to flash their annunciator. This system, similar to the system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,169,493 (Goodwin, III), requires direct communication with a central controller in order to enable annunciator activation, as well as display changes on the ESL, requiring greater store infrastructure changes such as wiring and wireless communication base installation. This system does not provide for reduction in time spent printing and sorting shelf talkers, and identifying exactly the locations requiring can take time if the clerk is not in the immediate vicinity of the tag when its annunciator is activated.
A system for finding an ESL is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,046,682 issued Apr. 4, 2000 to Zimmerman et al, titled “Electronic Price Label Including Noisemaker And Method Of Locating Electronic Price Labels,” which uses an antenna system to determine the approximate position of an ESL in combination with a noisemaker for producing a sound which is audible to a person to enable a person to “home in” on the location of the ESL.
An additional method for reducing time spent sorting and printing signage is disclosed by providers of carts for printing signage in the aisle at the “point-of-work,” such as disclosed by Internet websites for Powercart (http://www.powercart.com) and InfoLogix (http://www.infologixsys.com). However, the technologies for printing the signage can be rate limiting for the speed at which a clerk can place or replace signage in the store. Thermal and laser printed media also have the disadvantage of not being reusable.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,552,663 (Swartzel et al.) also provides for a printer associated with the handheld unit for printing new overlay labels for ESL's. There is no discussion of using the associated printer for use in printing shelf talkers in the vicinity of the ESL.
There remains a need, therefore, for an improved retail signage management system that provides for reduction in the amount of time required to print and place a sign such as a shelf talker in a retail environment. There is also a need to improve verification that the sign was appropriately placed. There is also a need to enable retail signage management in conjunction with a network of electronic shelf labels that does not require communication with a central computer or an intermediate controller to change pricing or manage sign placement. There is a need for signage media which is reusable.